If you have recently lost one of your teeth, you understand how quickly it can affect your day-to-day life. By exploring your options for prosthodontic replacement, you can reverse or prevent certain problems that come with dental loss. Left untreated, an open gap in your grin leaves a sensitive socket that you must be careful to not harm. This means leaving foods you once enjoyed out of your diet to not cause pain. Your bite can also become misaligned as neighboring teeth begin to drift into the open area. Misalignment can lead to additional oral health problems as certain teeth physically wear down from the added pressure of compensating for the missing tooth. As enamel loss increases your chances for tooth decay, you find your smile worse for wear in addition to losing function.
At your Ankeny, IA, dental practice, we could design and place a dental bridge to help you restore your smile. This non-invasive procedure connects a prosthetic to pontics placed on your remaining neighboring teeth. You can even replace multiple teeth at once if they are missing in a row. By exploring the benefits of tooth replacement, you can regain confidence in your smile once again!
Conditions That Contribute To Tooth Loss
The goal of preventive dentistry is to help you preserve your smile and support its strength over an entire lifetime. To achieve this end, you must maintain a commitment to daily oral hygiene. By brushing and flossing your teeth each day, you remove harmful plaque buildup that can cause decay and gum disease. When left on the surface of your teeth, bacteria in oral plaque create an acidic waste product that can wear away at the surface of your teeth. Sometimes your tooth decay can become so severe that extracting your tooth is the only treatment to preserve your smile.
However, the most common cause of missing teeth among adults today is gum disease. When bacteria infect the gingival tissue, the body’s inflammatory response destroys the connective organ. Without periodontal maintenance, your teeth can eventually become unstable and require extraction. To prevent an infection from advancing to this stage, make sure to attend dental checkups regularly.
Designing Your Bridge
We will take measurements of your socket and surrounding teeth to create your lifelike bridge. Once complete, we will permanently secure it to crowns placed on either side of your smile’s gap at a follow-up appointment. To preserve your smile, continue brushing and flossing each day and attend dental cleanings semiannually. At each visit, we will check your restoration to see that it is holding strong.
Speak With Your Ankeny, IA, Dentist About Replacing Your Tooth
We look forward to helping you replace your missing tooth to restore your smile! If you would like to find out more about replacing missing teeth, please contact your Ankeny, IA, dentist’s office at (515) 207-6182 to schedule a visit.
